Lucky Bastard

My final take on the title is that a Lucky Bastard is one never to have met and become entangled with a crack addict. The manipulation of educated, successful Rusty, which comes by every single word out of Denny the drug addict's mouth, seems to be remembered verbatim. Rusty's susceptibility comes in part from his being a decent guy who does not expect others to lie. Al Green sang about a kind-hearted woman who revives a poor half-frozen snake. When the snake bites her in return, he brushes aside her betrayal by reminding her that she knew what he was when she warmed him to her bosom.

Life's too short to watch bad movies, and this is one I found myself compelled to watch completely. The actors are all capable and believable in the many layers they must weave. The production values won't make you cringe, and the script manages to show a lot in a brief time, without wasting any. The music is unusually good, which is why I'm on line to find out more about it (found it as Amazon mp3 downloads). You don't need to suspend disbelief to enjoy this film. Instead, let this film lead you out of whatever naiveté insists we'd never misstep in the path of an addicted conman without conscience. Here's where you can glimpse how fallible such a belief makes you.

This flick screened at Outfest in Los Angeles two nights ago to a completely sold out audience. Many standing in line were even turned away. They were the lucky ones.

The storyline, in a nutshell: When his boyfriend leaves town, architect and restorer Rusty quickly hooks up with a sexy drifter named Denny. Rusty's already unsettled life is set on its ear when he discovers that Denny is a crystal meth-addicted hustler.

Beginning about 20-30 minutes into the film, audience members started walking out in droves. I'm not sure of their reasons, but I would have left had I not been stuck in the middle of a crowded row of people involved with the film. I would have just felt bad disturbing their experience.

Why would I have left? I found both the storyline and the characters unbelievable and unlikeable. Rusty is described as a success, but I couldn't figure out why anyone would use that word to describe him. Unable to make a decision or take a stand, he lets himself get pushed around professionally and emotionally throughout the film. Had there been some kind of hook or insight in either the writing of the character or the actor's performance, I might have wanted to root for the guy, but he just kept going back for more and never earned my respect as an audience member.

The two lead actors are gorgeous, so that was what largely what made the film semi-bearable for me. And Dale Dymkowski, who plays the hustler Denny, did the best he could with what he was given, so he's pretty much what earned the two stars in my rating.

Technically the film is kind of creaky as well. The color was terrible in the print I saw, and the sound was extremely tinny.

Recommended for home viewing only, where you have the fast forward option and the ability to give up on it easily if you're so inclined.

This was an excellent film that I didn't expect to watch. I thought I'd give it a try, as I have with many other gay-themed films, and turn it off in 15 minutes. But I couldn't. It is a very remarkable character-driven story. Other reviewers here have pointed out that the characters are at times unlikable or that their actions don't make sense. To that I would respond...that's life. And this film was extremely life-like. Certainly, there's some moments of weakness, but the dialog is very well-written and delivered. Dale Dymkoski in particular is captivating. His character is quite unlikable. At different points in the film, you want him gone, and yet your heart breaks for him. That's a great performance. The character growth in this story is something that's rare to see in any film, particularly one on this budget. Story-wise, everything comes full-circle.

As an aside, it irks me to read in some reviews that people were observed to "walk out of the theater." That's a cliché here on IMDb. Every time I read that, I know the review cannot be trusted. It's not a reaction I would expect at a film festival. I'm a lover of film, and I've never seen people leave a theater en-mass, especially one like this. Reviewers should post their review without relying on on others to back up their point of view. People that walk out of a theater do not lend credibility to a review, as they can't review something they didn't bother to watch. And maybe they were just getting snacks.

After watching about half the film I kept thinking that an educated, intelligent, successful person would never so easily hook up with some guy he had a chance encounter with at a liquor store, let alone almost immediately claim that he "really loved" the guy. And, if that wasn't sufficiently incredible, he certainly wouldn't stick around once the guy started hitting on him for money for drugs, followed by making a scene at a bar proclaiming that "you don't own me" and "I'll do whatever I want."

I even checked in this forum at that point to see what others thought about the plausibility of all this … and initially agreed 100% with a reviewer who wrote several lines beginning with "There is absolutely no way any sensible person would …" and who concluded "The implausibilities in the story are the film's major weakness." That's exactly what I felt too.

But I gave it some further thought and watched the rest of the movie … with a bit of fast-forwarding. There are a lot of people, intelligent or not, educated or not, sophisticated or not, who sometimes do totally irrational things when driven by infatuation or, more bluntly, by lust. It may imply a degree of vulnerability but people who seem to have their act together can still be vulnerable as well.

I doubt at this point in life I'd be so easily drawn into doing something so stupid, but then opportunities to be irrational with someone as sexy as the character Denny don't come my way … for reasons other than my sensible, world-weary personality.

Real people do incredibly stupid things when it comes to sex. If they're lucky, they're not too badly hurt by the experiences and they do return to making sensible choices … as was the case with Rusty.

Quite often people in movies do things that we would never do and act in a way that seems irrational to us, but most of us know real people who do such things. The news often reports on famous, supposedly well-respected, sensible people who do incredibly reckless things because of sex. We may even look back on our own lives and recall some amazingly implausible things we did … because of sex.

Nonetheless, even after accepting Rusty's illogical behavior as realistic for some emotionally fragile people and also noting that the two main characters in the movie are definitely easy on the eyes, it is still by no means a great movie. There was never any sense of Rusty being driven by his infatuation for Denny, we were just told that he really loved him and had to believe that was what was making him act foolishly. Neither the story nor the acting helped to make us understand why Rusty did what he did.

I gave this higher marks than some, because I think the story cast a light on the prevalence of meth in LA, especially when it's used for sexual enhancement in the gay community. I once visited LA in 2011, and I met a recovering meth addict, age 50, by chance. It's important to show how these drugs destroy lives, as it did Denny's, one of the leads in this film. Yes...the actor playing Rusty was a bit stiff, but he played and looked the part well enough....wholesome and cute with a lean, hot body. Yes, it didn't seem believable that he would let a meth head drifter into his head or bed. But Denny was a confident charmer with a smoking hot body. And Rusty seemed to be very vanilla and conventional, with limited sexual experience. Denny brought out his inner pig....at least for awhile. In the end, we did see a believable conclusion....as Rusty's experiment didn't last long. Denny had the more demanding role and I think he did a good job. Happy ending.....but felt bad for all the people like Denny. Worth watching once.